Busy Hands Homestead

The evenings have been hazy. "Smokey", Adam never fails to correct me. The sun, glows orange in the afternoon, deepening in color as it moves closer to the horizon.  The mornings are just brisk enough that I have pulled out all the little light weight jackets and we all wore our layers to the last of this summer's Camp Deep Creek Fridays. A small group met us there - some children already back to their school routines.  We spent one last camp day paddling around the pond, lounging on quilts, snacking and chatting, interrupted only by the distant putt putt of - what are they? airplanes or helicopters? Hours later I wrestled two tired children into the car to drive home. Looking out across the river and the town, from my high vantage point on Big Flat Road, I could see nothing of the mountains.  Nothing.  I couldn't help feeling like someone just took a giant big bowl and flipped it down on top of us. Ther...

We did it!  We printed our shirts! photo credit:  Willow Affleck photo credit:  Willow Affleck The summer is almost over, but at least we have some awesome t-shirts. (And one more Camp Deep Creek Friday to look forward to before everyone goes back to school.) For an up close view of the design, click here .

"Look!  A Crawdad!"   I  was scrolling through the photographs taken last weekend and this is one of the only pictures that we took of the 30 Hour Birthday Feast.   The other photograph is of me kneading that evening's third batch of pizza dough to be shaped, topped and baked in the out door cob oven. These are the only photographs that commemorate the amazing weekend filled with friends and food, a float trip and pit roasted lamb that began my last year of my twenties.  And while I have a mental list of things I would like to do before I am thirty, I had a much more pressing issue to tackle this last week. Remember all of those capes I made last week for Camp Deep Creek? Well, I had an even larger pile of t-shirt scraps sitting in my living room that I just couldn't bear to throw away.  So puttering around in my living room alone, while my husband worked away in the wood shop out back, it occurred to me that I could use thes...

 Thursday: I spent the afternoon turning T-shirts into capes.  A lot of capes. Capes to be turned into creatures real and imaginary.  Friday:  With bits of lace, felt and feathers the older kids turned their capes into a sloth, a mountain lion and a blue bird. The boys went off to patrol the borders of their animal kingdoms, while Ivory continued to add little bits and pieces to her cape, that started out as a blue bird.  Soon the blue bird was joined by a balloon and a multitude of flowers.  So, for all of the Deep Creek Campers that were not present this Friday and would like to make your own cape, this is what you need:  a T- shirt heat bonded Velcro an iron with a steam setting scissors and the instructions from this tutorial I left my sewing machine firmly in its case for this one, and I don't own a hot glue gun.  So for the Velcro closure around the neck I used heat bonded Velcro tabs...

Images included: boat wildflower insect music I hope it includes some of this summer's highlights.. Let me know what you think.

The Beginning: Canvas 1: Canvas 2: Canvas 3:  Back to Canvas 2 with a broom for a paintbrush: The End!

"Yesterday there was lightning. It started a tiny fire.  This big." Ivory pauses to squeeze her pointer finger and thumb together to show Adam the size of the fire. "On the other side of the mountain.  And then there was a helicopter that brings fire.  No.  Gets all the water from the pond and takes it to the fire.  ALL the water from the pond (big gesture).  And then the water fills up again." She pauses for a breath, stabbing at her leftover macaroni and cheese, looking critically across the table at her father. "But, we didn't see the helicopter land.  Mama really wanted to see it land". She turns to me: "You REALLY wanted to see it land, didn't you Mama?" Sometimes the things that don't happen are even more exciting than the things that do. There was no mention of the life jackets, the canoes, the water bugs with funny flippers, the fish we saw while paddling around the lake or the water snail she proudly carried around...

"Can I have the pink one Mama?" Ivory snatches a pink pick out of my hand and starts to strum the strings on a red guitar.  I watch her play around on the instrument and am transported back into the narrow hallways of the music shop in Newfoundland, Canada where I bought my guitar and where I got the random assortment of picks that lives in the pocket of my guitar case.  A whole row of beginners guitars hung from the wall: red, blue, black, white...  I almost bought the blue guitar, but then opted instead, for the beautiful warm toned wood body of the guitar I have now.  It wants to be touched.  It deserves to be touched, and I am embarrassed to admit that I can play it as well as when I bought it (which is not at all).   I don't play guitar (yet.. at least I keep telling myself that.)  Ivory doesn't play guitar either. She plays an upright bass.  She plays an upright bass in an orchestra of children pounding on drums,...